1996/99
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KNOCK FIRE SURVIVOR TELLS OF HER ORDEAL
15 October 1997
"My faith sustains me", says remarkable Rose Curry
By TOM SHIEL
Seventy two years old Rose Curry, the only survivor of the Knock house fire in which three members of her family died, has been speaking for the first time about the ordeal and of her attempts to come to terms since with the terrible tragedy.
Ms. Curry, a former nurse who has worked both in Ireland and abroad, has been widely admired for the immediate courage she has shown in attending the funerals of her brother Martin (80) and sisters Julia (77) and Kathleen (74).
Her apparent serenity in the face of huge adversity has been commented on and her strength in meeting and shaking hands with the huge flow of people who came to express heartfelt sympathy both at the funerals and afterwards.
But Ms Curry told the Connaught Telegraph: "I don't know if I have strength. It has not sunk in yet. I'm alright until I start thinking. The early morning is the worst but at least I am able to cry then.
ATTENDED FUNERALS
"I didn't find it difficult at all to go to the funerals. If I hadn't gone I would have felt awful. I think by now I have met most people who wanted to sympathise with me. The support and sympathy is a great help to me".
Ms. Curry began her nursing career in Britain. Then she moved to Castlerea, County Roscommon before ending her career at Merlin Park Hospital in Galway. She joined her brother and sisters in the old family home at Knock in 1989.
"We were mostly a happy family", Rose recalled , adding " apart from the usual small tensions which arise in every house now and then ."We went to Mass regularly."
Recalling the fire itself which destroyed the ancestral home of the far-flung Curry family, a name synonymous with Knock, Rose said: "I suppose I survived because I was sleeping downstairs.
"On the previous night, we had gone to the First Friday Mass in Barnacarroll. We were all in good form afterwards. We watched Gay Byrne. The others went to bed before me. I did a few little chores such as putting in my eyedrops.
"Usually I am a good sleeper. I could drop down in the chair and sleep. I was sleeping downstairs, the others were upstairs. When I awoke it must have been around 6 a.m.
I think I switched on the light but I could not see well even though I had my glasses on. I had read a little the night before.
SLATES CRACKING
"There was smoke but I did not know where it was coming from. Then I went towards the stairs. I could feel things falling. I could hear noises. It must have been the noise or rattle of slates cracking in the flames. I could not get up the stairs. If I went up I would have been gone".
Rose Curry does not recall being afraid and had the presence of mind to wonder should have pulled out the fuses. She grabbed the phone and pulled it outside the door to escape the increasing heat.
"Then an upstairs window flew out into the street. I was on my knees near the front door ringing 999. I screamed into the phone. It must have been hard to understand me. Then Seamus Broderick (a neighbour) arrived and I moved away from the doorway".
Seamus Broderick insisted Rose get away from the building. He could do nothing to save the three who were trapped upstairs.
The worst part, says Rose, was looking up at the flames and of being totally unable to help her family.
The only possession to survive the fire was Rose's new car. She is now staying in a cousin's house in Knock as she picks up the shattered pieces of her life.
She says: "God is helping me. I could not have got through all of this otherwise". Of her new home, she says: "I will be here as long as I want. I lost everything in the blaze".
Friends, relatives and clergy have been marvellous to Rose whose aunt, also Rose, was married to one of the 1879 Visionaries, Pat Byrne.
"With the help of God and my friends and neighbours I will get by", she said simply. "Please God, I will get strength to continue".
